NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND
A monologue from the
novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky
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NOTE: This monologue is reprinted
from Notes From the Underground. Trans. Constance Garnett.
New York: Macmillian Company, 1918. |
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NARRATOR: Why have you come to me, tell me that, please?
Why have you come? Answer, answer! I'll tell you, my good girl,
why you have come. You've come because I talked sentimental stuff
to you then. So now you are soft as butter and longing for fine
sentiments again. So you may as well know that I was laughing
at you then. And I am laughing at you now. Why are you shuddering?
Yes, I was laughing at you! I had been insulted just before,
at dinner, by the fellows who came that evening before me. I
came to you, meaning to thrash one of them, an officer; but I
didn't succeed, I didn't find him; I had to avenge the insult
on someone to get back my own again; you turned up, I vented
my spleen on you and laughed at you. I had been humiliated, so
I wanted to humiliate; I had been treated like a rag, so I wanted
to show my power .... That's what it was, and you imagined I
had come there on purpose to save you. Yes? You imagined that?
Save you! Save you from what? But perhaps I am worse than you
myself. Why didn't you throw it in my teeth when I was giving
you that sermon? Power, power was what I wanted then, sport was
what I wanted, I wanted to wring out your tears, your humiliation,
your hysteria--that was what I wanted then! Of course, I couldn't
keep it up then, because I am a wretched creature, I was frightened,
and, the devil knows why, gave you my address in my folly. Afterwards,
before I got home, I was cursing and swearing at you because
of that address, I hated you already because of the lies I had
told you. Because I only like playing with words, only dreaming,
but, do you know, what I really want is that you should all go
to hell. That is what I want. I want peace; yes, I'd sell the
whole world for a farthing, straight off, so long as I was left
in peace. Is the world to go to pot, or am I to go without my
tea? I say that the world may go to pot for me so long as I always
get my tea. Did you know that, or not? I am a blackguard, a scoundrel,
an egoist, a sluggard. Here I have been shuddering for the last
three days at the thought of your coming. And do you know what
has worried me particularly for these three days? That I posed
as such a hero to you, and now you would see me in a wretched
torn dressing-gown, beggarly, loathsome. I told you just now
that I was not ashamed of my poverty; so you may as well know
that I am ashamed of it; I am more ashamed of it than of anything,
more afraid of it than of being found out if I were a thief,
because I am as vain as though I had been skinned and the very
air blowing on me hurt. I shall never forgive you for having
found me in this wretched dressing-gown! And I shall never forgive
you for the tears I could not help shedding before you just now,
like some silly woman put to shame! And for what I am confessing
to you now, I shall never forgive you either! Yes--you must answer
for it all because you turned up like this, because I am a blackguard,
because I am the nastiest, stupidest, absurdest and most envious
of all the worms on earth, who are not a bit better than I am,
but, the devil knows why, are never put to confusion; while I
shall always be insulted by every louse, that is my doom! And
what is it to me that you don't understand a word of this! And
what do I care, what do I care about you, and whether you go
to ruin there or not? Do you understand? How I shall hate you
now after saying this, for having been here and listening. Why,
it's not once in a lifetime a man speaks out like this, and then
it is in hysterics! [Pause.] What more do you want? Why
do you still stand confronting me, after all this? Why are you
worrying me? Why don't you go?
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MONOLOGUES BY FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY |
